Meet the Author--"Borderlands Biography: Z. Anthony Kruszewski in Wartime Europe and Postwar America
21With Anthony Kruszewski, PhD, and author Beata Halicka, PhD
Join us for an engaging evening with Z. Anthony Kruszewski—an eyewitness to the war in Europe, an extraordinary man, and leading intellectual in the Polish-American community.
Kruszewski was first a Polish scout fighting in World War II against the Nazi occupiers, then a prisoner of war/displaced person in Western Europe. He was stranded as a penniless immigrant in post-war America and eventually became a world-renowned academic.
Kruszewski’s incredible life stands out from his entire generation. His story is a microcosm of 20th-century history, covering various theaters and incorporating key events and individuals. Kruszewski walks a stage very few people have even stood on, both as an eyewitness at the center of World War II, and later as vice president of the Polish American Congress, and a professor and political scientist at world-class universities in the United States. Not only did he become a pioneer and a leading figure in Borderland Studies, but he is a “borderlander” in every sense of the word.
Beata Halica is the author of six books and numerous articles and the editor of many collective publications. She is a professor of contemporary history at the University of Adam Mickiewicz in Poznań: from 2013 to 2018 at the Polish-German Research Institute in Collegium Polonicum in Słubice and since 2018 at the Faculty of History in Poznań. She lectured in cultural history of East Central Europe at the European University of Viadrina in Frankfurt (Oder) between 2006 and 2014 and was a visiting professor at universities in Calgary, Canada (2014), and El Paso, Texas (2016).